II. Ts‘ai Lu

The Ts‘ai Lu; narrative. A wife tells her sorrow and incapability of attending to anything, in the prolonged absence of her husband, to whom she was fondly attached.

1So full am I of anxious thought,
Though all the morn king grass I've sought,
     To fill my arms I fail.
Like wisp all-tangled is my hair!
To wash it let me home repair.
     My lord soon may I hail!

2Though ’mong the indigo I've wrought
The morning long, through anxious thought,
     My skirt's filled but in part.
Within five days he was to appear.
The sixth has come, and he's not here.
     Oh! how this racks my heart!

3When here we dwelt in union sweet.
If the hunt called his eager feet,
     His bow I cased for him.
Or if to fish he went away,
And would be absent all the day,
     His line I put in trim. p. 319

4What in his angling did he catch?
Well worth the time it was to watch
     How bream and tench he took.
Men thronged upon the banks and gazed;
At bream and tench they looked amazed,
     The triumphs of his hook.